On May 21, 2010 I’m scheduled to appear on a panel discussing historical research at Coyote Con, an online author’s conference sponsored by Drollerie Press.  I prepared an outline on the subject that’s way too long to copy and paste in the chat-room, so I decided to post it here. I’m using my novel, Confessions of the Creature, to illustrate a method of doing historical research for fiction. I’ll begin with a broad view of an historical period, drill down to details, and provide some examples of anachronisms and how to avoid them. I’ll end with a very brief reference to the infamous info-dump, but that’s really a subject for another forum.

1. Period and Setting. Since my novel was inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the time (1799-1815) and the place (Russia & Europe during the Napoleonic period) were dictated by Mrs. Shelley’s work. You’ll probably begin with a good idea of the time and place in which to set your novel. But for more ideas, you might want to begin with a good comparative historical timeline. For example, my Oxford English Reference Dictionary has an excellent Chronology of World Events, containing a broad overview of cultural, political and technological developments from pre-historic times to the present.

2.         Overview. Once you’ve set your time and place, get a good general history and take a look at relevant encyclopedia articles and biographical dictionaries. A familiarity with the literature of the period is helpful. For example, anyone writing Regency Romance ought to be familiar with Jane Austen. Underlining descriptive details—clothing, hairstyles, furnishings etc.—is a good starting point for drilling down in the next phase.

            I began my research on “Confessions” by reading a good, contemporary paperback edition of Frankenstein that contained a concise biography of the author, a well-sourced introduction, an historical timeline (The World of Mary Shelley), extensive end-notes, and a list for further reading, including Mary Shelley’s other novels, Letters and Journals, Major influences on Frankenstein and Works about Frankenstein and Mary Shelley. That was a gold-mine of source material and a jumping-off point for Google searches on the internet. I also read collections of Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron (they appear as characters in Confessions, along with Mary) in paperback editions that also contained helpful source material for further research.

            Next, since my protagonist Viktor, the transformed Frankenstein monster, was to become a hero of the Napoleonic Wars, I began with the military history of the period in a general overview and read a biography of Napoleon Bonaparte. I was also able to research on-line the memoirs of soldiers who fought in the wars and for more details of the Russian army of the period there was, of course, Tolstoy’s War and Peace. And on-line research led me to a recently published history of the Russian Officer Corps of that period. With a wealth of information, I was ready for the next stage: organizing materials by category. 

3.         Details: In the final stage, it’s a good idea to organize your material by category and “missing pieces” can be filled in by on-line research. In my experience, the most reliable sites are those associated with institutions of higher learning and historical societies. And I kept a record of my sources for future reference. Here’s an example of categories for organizing your period research materials. The list is illustrative and by no means exhaustive, and categories can of course include sub-categories (see “Military” below), and some categories cross-over into others.

            Fashions

            Furnishings

            Art & Architecture

            Class Distinctions/Social Hierarchy

            Political and Legal Organization

            Military (Battle strategies, maps, uniforms, weapons, tactics, logistics, etc.)

            Transportation and Communications

            Technology

            Economics

            Philosophy and Religion

            Medical Practice

            Dining and Entertainment

            Distinctive Customs/Manners and Morals

Pictures from the period (paintings, lithographs, etchings and, after 1840, photographs) are good for visualizing scenes, and there are plenty of visual references available in books and on-line. Movies and T.V. historical productions are also a good source, but a word of caution. The old classic Hollywood films often got things wrong. Fashions, furnishings, music, ball-room dances, etc. can be off by a decade or more. This brings me to the topic of anachronisms, and how I try to avoid them.

 Years ago I read a biography written by a best-selling author and published by a major house. The era was Victorian, and I recall two glaring errors that ought to have been avoided. First, there was a reference to “wireless” communication in the 1870s. In fact, there was no “Wireless” until about twenty years later. The author should have used “wire,” “cable,” or “telegram.”

Second, there was a reference to “film” for a camera, again in the 1870s. At the time, cameras used plates; film wasn’t introduced until the following decade.

Now I’ll refer to two of the above categories: “Transportation and Communications” and “Technology.” If the author had done his homework (or, in the case of some best-selling authors, his researcher had done it) he could have referenced those categories when writing, and avoided the glaring anachronisms. And writers should not expect editors to catch that sort of thing.

 Here’s an example from my own experience. In one of my published short stories, the protagonist travels from Paris to London; the time is 1848, just prior to the Revolution of that year. In my first draft I wrote that he took the Boat-Train from Calais to Dover, but I made a note to do further research because I wasn’t sure that that route had been completed at the time. My hunch was correct. In 1848, the French railway system had not yet been extended to the Channel Ports, and my character would have taken a coach to either Calais for the crossing to Dover, or Boulogne for a crossing to Folkestone. A minor detail that most readers might not have caught, but I’m glad I took a little extra time to get it right. Now if I’d been writing Steampunk, I might have had my character traveling through a Victorian era Chunnel!

 A final word concerning info-dumps. After spending a great deal of time and effort gathering your material, there’s often an urge to show off your hard-earned knowledge by using everything you’ve got. I try to avoid that natural urge, and when I do introduce historical detail I try to work it into the action and narrative in such a way as to not draw undue attention to it.

 For example, you may have a scene where your protagonist inspects some lines on her face as reflected in a mirror. Some detail about the mirror and the source of illumination can reveal much about the time and place of the scene, but those technological details must never crowd out what’s of primary importance: What does that look into the mirror reveal about the character and how does the scene connect to the story-line?

Drollerie Press is sponsoring Coyote Con, a Digital Authors Conference scheduled to run through the month of May. Here’s the link.

http://coyotecon.com

Some purists think Literary Reimaginings or “Mashups” are sacrilegious, as though inserting scenes of zombie, werewolf, mummy, and vampire martial arts mayhem into the classics were a crime akin to robbing a great writer’s grave. What the purists tend to overlook is the fact that Mashups have introduced a new generation to stories they would not otherwise have read unless the books were assigned classroom reading, in which case they most likely would have been skimmed or read in synopsis form.

 Today’s general reader wants lots of action and has little patience for the quiet, slow-paced literature of the past. Such readers would be hard pressed to sit through a film version of a Jane Austen novel, let alone read one from cover to cover. But add darkly humorous “Kill Bill” combat with the evil undead to the staid and stodgy old world of Lizzie Bennet and Mr. Darcy and you grab those readers’ attention. To them, the very thought of demure 19^th century ladies and sedate gentlemen as ravening zombies, or samurai sword-wielding zombie slayers, is laughter-provoking. I wrote Daisy Miller Zombie Killer with such readers in mind.

Henry James’s 1879 tragedy is a great story of love, lost opportunities, misunderstandings between the sexes, class snobbery and cultural conflict. But its quiet, slow pace and flowery Victorian prose are off-putting to most contemporary readers. Moreover, few readers nowadays can identify with the stiff, aristocratic Mr. Winterbourne or the pretty, flirtatious Daisy. And that’s a shame, because those readers are missing out on a story about moral blindness and prejudice that is as relevant and universal today as it was when written.

A good Mashup retains most of the original story and its themes while adding enough humor and mayhem to keep the reader awake, entertained and turning pages. Rather than a ghoulish grave-robbing of the great literature of the past, the Mashup can be a vigorous resurrection of the classics, bringing them alive in a fresh, new genre for today’s reader and for generations to come.

In this final excerpt from my Mashup in progress, Miss Daisy encounters aristocratic zombies at a fancy Roman dinner party. Havoc ensues.

Daisy came after eleven o’clock; but she was not, on such an occasion, a young lady to wait to be spoken to. She rustled forward in radiant loveliness, smiling and chattering, carrying a large bouquet, and attended by Mr. Giovanelli. Everyone stopped talking and turned and looked at her. She came straight to Mrs. Walker. “I’m afraid you thought I never was coming, so I sent mother off to tell you. I wanted to make Mr. Giovanelli practice some things before he came; you know he sings beautifully, and I want you to ask him to sing. This is Mr. Giovanelli; you know I introduced him to you; he’s got the most lovely voice, and he knows the most charming set of songs. I made him go over them this evening on purpose; we had the greatest time at the hotel.” Of all this Daisy delivered herself with the sweetest, brightest audibleness, looking now at her hostess and now round the room, while she gave a series of little pats, round her shoulders, to the edges of her dress. “Is there anyone I know?” she asked.
      “I think every one knows you!” said Mrs. Walker pregnantly, and she gave a very cursory greeting to Mr. Giovanelli.

      The Italian gentleman returned the perfunctory salutation gallantly. He then took Miss Daisy by the arm. They were about to go off and join the party when the young lady wriggled her pretty little nose and then screwed up her face most charmingly.

      “Phewweee, Mrs. Walker. I declare this place stinks like a privy that’s backed up half-way to hell!”

      The hostess was livid. Her hands trembled, her lips quivered and her eyes bulged out like an old bull-frog’s. She raised her fan menacingly, as if to aim a blow at her lovely interlocutrix. “How dare you, you impudent little chit! If we were men, I would call you out. As it is, I’ve a mind to give you a jolly good hiding!”

      “Oh, horse feathers, Mrs. Walker. I tell you, this place reeks of zombies. Look, there’s one now, coming straight for us. Out of my way!” With that, Miss Miller rudely shoved Mrs. Walker aside. She lifted her skirts up to her knees, whipped out her Bowie knife and made directly for an old gentleman who wore many glittering decorations draped across his breast upon a red moiré silk sash. “Heeeyahhh, die you spawn of Satan!” cried she as she streaked toward the doddering nobleman.

      “Aaarrrgh,” gurgled the man as Miss Daisy’s blade sliced clean through his starched collar and scrawny neck. The severed head flew straight for a mantelpiece upon which were tastefully arranged many choice bibelots of considerable value. Mrs. Walker’s drawing room echoed with the sound of shattered porcelain as the head bowled over a row of vases as though they were pins in a Bowery bowling alley.

      Mrs. Walker seethed with rage. In the blackest of humors, she turned upon Winterbourne. “Well sir, your pretty lady friend has just decapitated the Transylvanian Ambassador. And what is worse, she has destroyed a collection of Sevres that once belonged to the Emperor Napoleon III!”

      “My dear Mrs. Walker,” replied the young man in a gentle tone intended to mollify his hostess,” the Millers are quite well-off. I’m certain that they will make good on any damages you might incur. As for the Ambassador, he was obviously a zombie.”

      “Zombie, shmonbie,” cried the exasperated Mrs.Walker. “These people are the crème de la crème of Roman society.” At that very moment a duke and a count shambled by with Miss Daisy Miller in hot pursuit.

      “Die you smelly sons-of-bitches,” shouted Miss Miller. “You shan’t escape my righteous vengeance.” She drew her British Bulldog, aimed and fired. The bullets blasted away the backs of the heads of the evil undead noblemen. Their brains and blood splattered all over an eighteenth-century Gobelins Tapestry with a cartoon of the fair huntress Diana by Boucher, which they grasped, clawed and scratched to shreds in their prolonged death struggles.   

      Mrs. Walker collapsed in a heap of rustling silk onto an elegantly embroidered Louis XVI settee. She mopped her damp forehead with a perfumed lace handkerchief and took a sniff of camphor from a tiny, Florentine quattrocento silver filigree scent bottle. “The season is ruined, positively ruined,” she gasped to no one in particular.

      Winterbourne observed Daisy as she enfiladed the drawing rooms, dispatching the evil undead with alacrity and a refreshing display of Yankee jeu d’esprit. He trembled with delight, and his skin tingled at the sound of her thrilling, “Yeeeehaaaas!” And he marveled at how closely she resembled the chaste goddess of the hunt portrayed in the zombie blood and guts besmeared tapestry. Part of him wanted to join her, to regain that wonderful sense of freedom and exuberance that he had experienced when together they had slaughtered mummies and zombies in the dungeons of Chillon. But something constrained him from joining his fair countrywoman in her crusade. And that something was his sense of decorum; it held him in check, chained as it were to a pillar of propriety. Our young American friend was too civilized—he had lived too long in Europe.

      Miss Daisy Miller made quick work of the zombies. Her final body count, in addition to the Transylvanian Ambassador, consisted of two Roman dukes, a Venetian count, a marchioness from Savoy, an English lord and a prominent Genoese banker. Servants removed the bodies and dismembered parts, mopped the blood, brains, and guts and collected the remnants of shattered bibelots. Miss Daisy’s mother was presented with a bill for damages and the party proceeded with the remaining guests. As the evening wore on, things returned to normal—more or less.

Here’s another excerpt from Daisy Miller Zombie Killer. In this scene, Mr. Winterbourne escorts Daisy to the Castle of Chillon on the shores of Lake Geneva. The romantic mood is broken when the young lovers are attacked by a horde of stinky old zombies and malodorous, malevolent mummies.

In the castle, after they had landed, the subjective element decidedly prevailed. Daisy tripped about the vaulted chambers, rustled her skirts in the corkscrew staircases, flirted back with a pretty little cry and a shudder from the edge of the oubliettes, and turned a singularly well-shaped ear to everything that Winterbourne told her about the place. But he saw that she cared very little for feudal antiquities and that the dusky traditions of Chillon made but a slight impression upon her. They had the good fortune to have been able to walk about without other companionship than that of the custodian; and Winterbourne arranged with this functionary that they should not be hurried—that they should linger and pause wherever they chose. The custodian interpreted the bargain generously—Winterbourne, on his side, had been generous—and ended by leaving them quite to themselves. Miss Miller’s observations were not remarkable for logical consistency; for anything she wanted to say she was sure to find a pretext. She found a great many pretexts in the rugged embrasures of Chillon for asking Winterbourne sudden questions about himself—his family, his previous history, his tastes, his habits, his intentions—and for supplying information upon corresponding points in her own personality. Of her own tastes, habits, and intentions Miss Miller was prepared to give the most definite, and indeed the most favorable account.

      They strolled through a dank, vaulted chamber below the level of the lake. Miss Miller stopped abruptly and sniffed the air. “Do you smell that, Mr. Winterbourne?” she said with hushed urgency.

      Winterbourne paused and took a whiff, but aside from the musty dungeon odor all he could detect was the charming fragrance of Miss Daisy’s floral eau de toilette. He smiled. “I notice nothing, Miss Miller, save the delightful scent that emanates from your lovely person.”

      “Oh pshaw, I don’t believe you. This place stinks like a dog fart from hell, and it’s coming from that French thingy where you said they used to throw the prisoners back in the old days.”  Miss Daisy pointed her parasol toward an oubliette at the other end of the chamber.

      Winterbourne was shocked, but not by Miss Miller’s implication that they were in proximity to a host of evil undead who dwelled within the oubliette, but rather by her vulgar language. He had never before heard a young lady declare that something stank like a dog fart from hell. Indeed, such a figure of speech was not customary in the polite society of Geneva, and for a moment he wondered whether such expressions were fashionable among the pretty young flirts in New York.

      “What’s the matter? Are you deaf or dumb all of a sudden? I’m telling you this place is about to be crawling with mummies and zombies and we’re in for a ruckus. Can you handle a British Bulldog?”

      “Uh—uh yes, Miss Miller, I believe I can.” Winterbourne was a good shot, though he much preferred his Smith and Wesson Model No. 3 Army Schofield to a British Bulldog.

      “All right then.” Miss Daisy took the revolver from her handbag along with a fully loaded spare cylinder. “This one’s been modified for rapid re-load. Do you think you can manage it?”

       Winterbourne smiled, took the revolver and spare cylinder in his right hand while giving a twirl to his mustache with his left. “Oh I think I can make do in a pinch.”

      “Aaaargh!!” a looming zombie ejaculated menacingly.

      “Son of a bitch!” cried Miss Daisy. She spun around on her high-heeled pumps, whipped out the Bowie knife from her flounce-concealed sheath, and neatly decapitated the monster in one flashing slash. The grotesque head went flying down the arched corridor where it bounced and rolled like a bowling ball while the blood-spurting body fell to the stone floor, where it flipped and flopped like a suffocating fish.

      “I say Miss Miller that was a jolly quick beheading!”

      “Save the compliments for later, Mr. Winterbourne. In a minute mummies and zombies are going to be swarming us like bedbugs in a Bowery bordello.”

      Miss Miller’s words were prophetic, for in a trice the evil undead rose in horrible profusion from the rank depths of the oubliette. Mummies to the right of them! Zombies to the left! The British Bulldog barked and the sparkling Bowie knife hacked and slashed, splattering zombie brains and blasting mummy stuffing throughout the dank dungeons of Chillon.

      “Oh this is cracking good fun!” shouted Winterbourne. “I love the sharp smell of gunpowder, the verdant spray of zombie guts and the golden shower of mummy dust. It makes me feel—alive. Ha! Ha!” 

      “Spare me the swagger, honeybunch; you’re almost out of bullets.”

      Winterbourne had drawn a bead on an enormous mummy that was lumbering in his direction. The Bulldog’s hammer clicked on an empty chamber. “Oh dear me, I fear I am done for” observed Winterbourne.

      “Aarrrrgh!” snarled the seven-foot mummy as it gripped Winterbourne’s throat and lifted him off the floor.

      “Ooof, orrfff, ouff!” Winterbourne grunted incoherently as he slowly strangled in the mummy’s merciless grasp.

      “Let go of my boyfriend, you bitch!” demanded Miss Daisy Miller. She leaped into the air and flew at the mummy. Miss Daisy cried, “Heeeyaahhh!” and thrust downward into the fiend’s neck with superhuman force. Miss Miller’s gleaming silver blade sliced through the monster, cleaving it in twain. The bifurcated revenant collapsed in a heap of desiccated particulate matter.

      Miss Miller hacked away the mummy’s hands and tore its tenacious fingers from Winterbourne’s throat. She smoothed his hair and stroked his forehead tenderly. “Speak to me, darling,” she implored.

      Winterbourne’s eyelids flickered for an instant and then opened.  He gazed up at Miss Daisy, who was gently cradling his head in her hands. “I must be dreaming, or in heaven,” he sighed.

      “Well I declare, I’d just about given you up for dead.” Miss Miller helped our friend to his feet. Then, seeming to ignore him, she began patting at her frills and furbelows and shaking off the mummy dust. Then she began rubbing at a couple of spots. “Oh pshaw, this old zombie blood does stain something awful.”

      Still woozy, Winterbourne shook his head. Then, he glanced around the chamber at a veritable hecatomb of the evil undead. “What a mess,” he observed. “It’s a good thing I tipped the custodian.”

      “Yes it is,” replied Miss Daisy. “Well, what’s next on the tour?”

      “Oh, I thought I’d show you where they chained-up Bonivard. You may recall him from Lord Byron’s poem, ‘The Prisoner of Chillon.’ It’s that column over there.”            

      Miss Miller followed our friend as he gallantly helped her over piles of dismembered zombies and mangled mummies.

With the current craze for monster mash-ups, I decided to give the treatment to one of my favorite classic stories. Here’s a brief excerpt. Let me know what you think!

                                        Daisy Miller Zombie Killer

                                               by Henry James

                                               and Gary Inbinder

 Henry James’s tragic Victorian Romance — now with vampires, zombies, werewolves and conflicts with the Italian Evil Undead Slayers’ Union.

It seemed to Winterbourne that he had been in a manner presented. He got up and stepped slowly toward the young girl, throwing away his cigarette. “This little boy and I have made acquaintance,” he said, with great civility. In Geneva, as he had been perfectly aware, a young man was not at liberty to speak to a young unmarried lady except under certain rarely occurring conditions; but here at Vevey, what conditions could be better than these?– a pretty American girl coming and standing in front of you in a garden. This pretty American girl, however, on hearing Winterbourne’s observation, simply glanced at him; she then turned her head and looked over the parapet, at the lake and the opposite mountains. She seemed blissfully unaware of the undead creature that lurked beneath the shrubbery.

 Winterbourne wondered whether he had gone too far, but he decided that he must advance farther, rather than retreat. While he was thinking of something else to say, the young lady turned to the little boy again.

“I should like to know where you got that stake,” she said.

“I bought it,” responded Randolph.

“You don’t mean to say you’re going to take it to Italy?”

“Yes, I am going to take it to Italy,” the child declared. “There’re lots of undead bloodsuckers over there.”

The young girl glanced over the front of her dress and smoothed out a knot or two of ribbon. Then she rested her eyes upon the prospect again. “Well, I guess you had better leave it somewhere,” she said after a moment. “You’re likely to get in hot water with the Italian Evil Undead Slayers’ Union.”

“Are you going to Italy?” Winterbourne inquired in a tone of great respect for her apparent knowledge of things relating to the undead.

The young lady glanced at him again. “Yes, sir,” she replied. And she said nothing more.

“Are you–a– going over the Simplon?” Winterbourne pursued, a little embarrassed.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose it’s some mountain. Randolph, what mountain are we going over?”

“Going where?” the child demanded.

“To Italy,” Winterbourne explained.

“I don’t know,” said Randolph. “I don’t want to go to Italy. I want to go to America. I ain’t got no problem with the evil undead-slayer unions back home. We’re laissez faire capitalists.”

“Oh, Italy is a beautiful place, despite the unions.” rejoined the young man.

“Can you get candy there?” Randolph loudly inquired in a seeming non sequitor.

“I hope not,” said his sister. “I guess you have had enough candy, and mother thinks so too.”

“I haven’t had any for ever so long–for a hundred weeks!” cried the boy, still jumping about and thrusting at imaginary vampires.

The young lady inspected her flounces and smoothed her ribbons. A howl in the shrubbery interrupted her primping. A yellow-eyed, jagged-fanged, furry frothing-at-the mouthed creature sprang from beneath the dense foliage and bounded over the balustrade. Quicker than lightning, Miss Daisy Miller whipped out a flashing, silver Bowie Knife from a sheath concealed within a satin furbelow. She flung her trusty blade straight and true into the werewolf’s evil heart.

 “Owooo!” shrieked the loathsome fiend as it fell, writhing in agony at the girl’s dainty feet.   

 Miss Miller calmly retrieved her Bowie Knife from the expiring monster’s furry, blood-dripping chest. She sheathed the enchanted blade, pulled a British Bulldog revolver from her beaded silk handbag and popped a silver bullet into the creature, just to make sure.

 “That’ll learn you to mess with Daisy Miller, I reckon,” she remarked. Miss Miller pursed her lips charmingly and blew at the smoking gun-barrel before replacing the revolver in her bag.

Drollerie Press is having a sale from 10/3/09 through 10/17/09. Most titles will be on sale at the Drollerie Press bookshop for $1.99 or less! Check it out.

http://drolleriepress.com/

I’ve been writing a series of darkly humorous satires concerning the adventures
of a Mr. Nemo and his talking feline pal, Kafka the Cat. Two of the stories are
published online this week, one at The Absent Willow Review and the other at
Bewildering Stories. The BwS tale includes a nice review by Mike Lloyd. Here are
the links:

http://absentwillowreview.com/archives/nemo-and-kafka-balance-the-books

http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue349/cc_peredia.html

Another Nemo and Kafka story is scheduled to appear Jan. 2010 in Morpheus Tales,
a UK illustrated print quarterly.

Gary

Please see my Guest Blog Review of Peter Bogdanovich’s film version of Henry James’ classic, “Daisy Miller” on Rachael de Vienne’s website. Rachael added a perfect period picture to my post. Here’s the link to her website:

http://wardancingpixie.blogspot.com/

July 7 is Chocolate Day. To celebrate, Drollerie Press has a 20% off sale on Cindy Lynn Speer’s The Chocolatier’s Wife. Here’s the link.

http://drolleriepress.com/